To still feel slightly bitter about this? (Inheriting social housing)

[Buddybud]

I grew up in a two bed council house with my mother (single parent) and my sister in what could now be considered a highly gentrified area within walking distance of the city centre. My mother benefited from a life time tenancy. I left at eighteen to go to university, and my mother didn’t keep a place or bed for me. If I went back during the holidays i would have to sleep on the sofa which I found quite annoying especially when so many of my friends at Uni still had rooms in their parent’s houses. Fast forward a couple of years and I graduated, moved away, met my DH and we now have our own home but have been struggling with our mortgage due to cost of living, etc. My mother on the other hand remarried and moved in with her DH whilst putting my sister on the council house tenancy so my sister now has a life time tenancy with subsidised rent in an area I could never afford. Aibu to feel like that’s abit shitty?

Op, be proud of all that you have achieved. You have done very well in life. University, marriage, children, property ownership. Maybe this feeling you have runs deeper and you think that your sister is the Golden Child and you have been scapegoated? I received much less help and far fewer resources as an eldest child, than my younger siblings did. I achieved and became completely independent first. Your mother wanted both her kids to have as secure a home as possible and your sister was resident. She also knew you are married and successfully sustaining a mortgage. Do you generally feel short-changed by your mother?

Me too. Surely if someone no longer needs a council property, it should be repurposed for people who really do? Not just handed to a relative.

The main issue here for me is that your sister was able to get this home without going on a waiting list like other people.

Some people won’t like this opinion but social housing should be means tested on a periodic basis.

Also people claiming social housing isn’t subsidised are just self righteous fools. If the market rate is higher than the rent then it is being subsidised because that money could be received by the council to be used elsewhere, for example for bin collections. Instead the council needs to raise council tax to pay for the bin collections. Etc etc.

Op, you’ve got the mn nutters for whom anything less than Spartan self reliance from the age of 16 is freakishly snowflake like out in force tonight.

YANBU - it’s human nature to be upset by this kind of unfairness, even if there is no malice to it.

Add in the fact that it sounds like you were let down as a child – forced to leave at a very young age – and it’s no wonder you are starting to feel like your sister is the golden child, and you have been the scapegoat. You have been badly treated – but the only thing you can do is to find a way to cope with that that makes you feel better. I think some psychotherapy (not counselling) would be helpful as I’m sure this is not the first time that you’ve been treated unfairly by your parents.

It wasn't handed to a relative. OP's sister was already living in the property.

What do you think should happen? Mum leaves, so sister gets made homeless?

You can pass on a council tenancy once, and to someone who is already living there. Usually, this is from husband to wife or vice versa , but in this case it is parent to child. Mum could only pass it on to one child and that would be the child that is actually still living there. OP moved out and is now a home owner with her DH. There is no way she would be able to inherit or move back onto her mum's council place... and that is how it is.

Making her sister move out wont reduce OP's mortgage payments. She is just poisoning herself with her bitterness over this.

I think you need to recognise that a lot of the resentment and anger you’re holding is from an earlier time point in your life, your Mum is the one you’re angry at but she is not here so it’s deflected towards your sister.

In all honesty I think she did you a favour giving you a push out the door by reclaiming the dining room.

You are educated. You are married. You are a homeowner!! You have a much wider scope for fulfilment and career progression than your sister, thus increased earning capacity. You have financial security for yourself and your husband and you are wealth building for the kids in the long term.

What does your sister have? She’s in social housing. What are her career prospects? Marriage prospects? She might get a discount to buy the house after several years, but will she ever be able to financially do this?

Even if you had of stayed at home, the likelihood is that you would have moved out first eventually, giving exactly the same scenario that is playing out now.

Let your sister take this one, it doesn’t sound like she has the same capacity to earn and perhaps not the same capability either?

The option of living there after university instead of being forced out.

I think it's sad that you're both relying on council housing for two generations now and haven't managed to improve your situation from your mother's

You said you graduated and moved away.

Sounds like you need to separate these things out. Process your resentments towards how your mother handled the room situation when you moved out and stop linking it to your sister or your mom transferring the tenancy to her. Not doing that kind thing for your sister would have done absolutely nothing to help you, and you mother didn't force you out of the home in some years-long scheme to rob you of the tenancy.

Maybe your mother should have kept the dining room as your bedroom when you went to university. I too had plenty of friends at uni who went home to their own rooms and mums cooking all their favorite meals and sometimes I was jealous not to have that. But I was also luckier than many people that age to have extended family who I could comfortably stay with as needed and so were you. The age gap between you means your sister found herself in more fortunate circumstances than you - it could have gone the other way if your mom's circumstances had changed for the worse while she was still living at home.

You will end up owning your home and she will always be renting.

There are pros and cons to both.
It is how it is - you need to build a bridge in your mind and get over it.

I understand your feelings about not having a home when you were at Uni. You still needed a place in the holidays to go to.

But the fact that you did go back to your mums even though they had reclaimed the dining room, meant you were not really forced out. Did you discuss making the dining room a bedroom again after Uni and she said no? If you didn.t discuss it, then that was your fault tbf

Yeah. She said no.

You either haven’t read the thread properly or you are just being wilfully ignorant now.

There's no pros to renting, that's why no one does it by choice

That boat has sailed, OP. Like so many opportunities in life; make the most of what you have for your future. Feel free to dwell on the past, if you wish, but it’ll offer you little comfort.

All of the folk saying that’s just how it is, and concentrate on your own life, am I not allowed to feel hurt if someone treats me unfairly? Even if acknowledging that pain doesn’t resolve or change anything, I think it’s healthier to hold a place for it instead of brushing it under the carpet.

@Buddybud how old are you and your sister? When did the tenancy transfer happen?

Much of Europe rents by choice. And there are pros - flexibility, the lack of responsibility, someone else sorts out repairs.

💖to your mum.

@Robinni Marriage prospects??? WTF is this a Barbara Cartland novel Does OPs sister need a trousseau including a house??!!! The social housing tenant haters are getting more and more ridiculous

How have you been treated unfairly? She couldn’t have given you the tenancy and you weren’t exactly going to move back.

Lots of people don’t have rooms at their parents’ after uni. It was a two bed that stretched to fit you all and went back to being a two bed after you left.

Your sister presumably never moved away or left, and so has always lived there? It’s her lifelong home? Your mum did the logical thing.

Do you have other issues with your mum and sister?

How do I have much wider scope for career progression or for potential earnings? You literally know nothing about my sister other than she lives in a council house with her boyfriend.

I was told not to come home when I got pregnant at 17 so I understand being pushed out of your house. It meant I spent over 10 years in an abusive relationship. I did have an angry stage about it a couple of years back and got that out of my system so I do think it's healthy to get those feelings out and deal with them, but not to 'hold a place' for them indefinitely. So if the thoughts persist maybe you could look into some kind of therapy to try to let go of what happened.

In regards to your sister inheriting the house how do you think your mother could or should have handled that differently?

I couldn’t imagine giving one of my children a secure life long tenancy, while the other receives nothing from me. In my mind that’s the same one child inheriting my home, and leaving the other child with nothing.